A LETTER TO FGO

JONATHAN QIAN - Writer, 3rd Year, Chemical Engineering

"If you don’t play FGO this article probably won’t make any sense to you."

Originally published on Mar. 12, 2020

I still remember when I first heard about you. My sister had been playing you since release and convinced me to play by getting me a starting account with vanilla Saber (was and still is best girl btw). At first you were confusing and somewhat clunky to play compared to other mobile games I played, but I stuck with you because you had all the characters I love from the Fate universe.

Slowly but surely I fell deeper and deeper, figuring out your mechanics and enhancement system. I remember seeing 10 million QP and thinking “wow, I’ll be set for a while with this much QP!” Little did I know, 10 million QP was just a drop in the ocean of QP. Materials and gems were the bigger obstacle to advancing. Then came Karna, and with him, my first experience rolling your gacha. Karna is my all time best boy in Fate, and he’s probably what kept me coming back to you. Your gacha was very kind at first, giving me Karna within two 10-rolls, and all of a sudden I had two five stars to work on. I was madly in love with you at that point.

My support setup after getting Karna.

Your story was pretty mediocre at first. The first few singularities weren’t anything amazing, and I didn’t feel super invested until Okeanos. Because of this, I decided to put the story on hold in favor of farming for exp cards to feed Saber and Karna. At the time, clearing the 40AP nodes were impossible without the help of a Jeanne support, since she was able to tank all the hits as a Ruler while the rest of my underleveled party got blown up by the hands. Then your events came along. Events were and still are the best way to farm for materials. I remember trying my hardest to farm event currency for materials without any bonus CE’s since I had just started and how long it took to clear out the event shop. Fortunately, once I got materials and exp to power up my servants, you became much easier to play, and having one maxed five star made the story and later events a breeze.

From there, you started to change. Instead of a mobile game I would play for fun whenever I had the time, you became something I felt obligated to log in and play. More and more servants that I wanted were released and I fell into the gacha hole because I found satisfaction and enjoyment from hitting that 1% chance for five stars and maxing out servants’ levels and skill levels. All the highs of rolling the servants I wanted and all the salt of missing out on a servant became a normal part of playing you. After a while though, I began to change, while you stayed the same. After maxing out all of my favorite servants, I lost my will to grind your events and play you on a regular basis.

The result of playing FGO for almost three years.

Nowadays, I only log into you for the login bonuses. I’m still invested in your story and will probably come back when the Lostbelts are released in NA, but the days of playing you for hours are gone. Thank you for everything.

-Jon